Wow really? The roadtrip was that long ago?? Ok so much catching up to do..
Whistler Take One
After getting back from Nelson, Alana, Kathy and I had a couple of days off before jumping on a bus to Whistler in the afternoon on St. Pats Day (unplanned). Staying there the night at the university hostel to get up and ride the next day. We got there a day after 45cm of snowfall in 48 hours. So i was pretty damn exctited, but I just cannot say I was particularly impressed.. not with the snow anyway.. the mountain was completely tracked out and there was no fresh snow to be found anywhere.. Dont get me wrong it is a SERIOUSLY impressive mountain.. well actually 2 mountains. there's Whistler and Blackcomb, and they actually have a gondola called Peak2Peak which connects them together. THAT was impressive! The place is just enormous. At the end of the day I did a run from the top to Whistler Creek which is sort've off to the side and it took me about 20 minutes. the run just never ended, well at 4pm it certainly felt like it... a few beers at the mountain bar and we were back on the bus to Vancouver
Bye Lani!
Alana and Kathy departed on the 23rd March. I'm sure a bunch of stuff happened between heading to whistler and Alana leaving but nothing i can recall from this far back!! I got slack... So Alana leaving was kinda bittersweet.. I am extremely gratefull for the soft landing that she provided for me in Vancouver. Not only did she help me establish myself and provide support and enouragement for everything i needed to get done establishing a life, she also introduced me to a large amount of awesome people :) I was sorry to see her go, but at the same time there was so much positivity around it it was hard to be too upset. She's heading off for a once in a lifetime experience cruising around Europe, and her departure was the commencement of my independance here in Vancouver. Almost win-win! ;)
After seeing Alana off at the airport, I bumped into a random Aussie called Russell from townsville way. But I'll detail that story a little later in the piece..
Settling In At Home
When we were in Nelson we went to WalMart and bought some hanging drawers for my closet and a dual lamp, but at this stage I was sleeping on an airbed which continuously went flat, relegating me to the couch. Searching the local classifieds I found someone moving to Montreal and selling up all their stuff. I managed to get two sets of vertical shelves, a bed and matress all for $100! Whoop! However, upon attempting to construct said bed, I discovered that there were only 2 out of 8 nuts to screw the screws into.. turns out the girl had just placed the screws in the holes and hoped for the best.. clearly this bed didnt get much action or it would have most certainly fallen to pieces.. So i trekked to the local "Bunnings" style hardware store known as Canadian Tire and after struggling to determine whether metric or imperial was more appropriate (side note: Canada is extremely conflicted over which system to use. As far as I can tell they want to use metric but are held back by imports coming from US.. Speed is in kph, Height and length is in feet and inches, temperature is in celcius, weight is in pounds.. annoying), I finally got the bed sturdy and for the first time in 5 weeks started to feel like I had a home to live in.. This made things much more comfortable, here is my room as it stands now. The big empty wall is just dying to be filled with something arty. I have a few ideas but cant afford them just yet so I'll hold off.
I've also been getting along great with my roommates Camilo and Amin and their extended crew of friends. Mostly Mexican i'm virtually immersed in a spanish speaking environment... :) Both guys are heavily into paintball and have their own gear (plus spares!) and play in unofficial playing fields, virtually only paying for paint they buy online @ $40 for 2000 rounds!! One field they currently frequent is an abandoned womens penitentiary which sounds like sooooo much fun. I've held off joining them as I want to get some income going before I get addicted :)
Russell + Whistler Again + Insanity
Alighting the shuttle bus from the airport terminal to the bus station after seeing Alana off, I hear an Aussie voice questioning how to get to a specific hostel. I tell him I'm heading his way and to follow me. Then I jumped on the bus going in the wrong direction.. hahah nevertheless I met Russell. Aussie guy from up Townsville way who had rough plans to stop in Vancouver for a few days before moving east and ultimately down to South America for one hell of a journey. Two nights later we head to the bar below his downtown hostel for some drinks and there is a Kokanee Beer Promotion going on with a bunch of Glacier Girls running the show. All of us there enter the comp which involved sophisticated challenges such as putting on underwear and a wig in the fastest time possible. Cut to the chase: Russ wins. We're thinkin' yay some free beer or something.. no.. instead? An all expenses paid trip to Whistler for the Kokanee Whiteout Party a week later.
Russ crashed on the couch until the weekend and we were away. It is pretty hard to describe just what the weekend was like.. but 'surreal' is a handy adjective.. We were put up in a swishy hotel with free breakfast and dinners. First night we got there they announced a Toga themed pub-crawl through Whistler Village, they werent allowed to give us free alcohol so instead they gave us cash to spend on kokanee beer, which we promptly took to the local bottle shop and spent on spirits. Saturday we had a chance to go snowboarding for the morning, which was quite a struggle given the night before, but we managed.
The main even for the weekend was the Whiteout Party, which was located up the gondola to the top of the mountain - very exciting. The party was pretty wild with kokanee prmo girls all over the place and all these other girls (i'm guessing crowd filler) known as Fun Police, a foam pit, a breakdancing show, great beats and just all round enthusiasm from everyone to enjoy the night.. Hard to go wrong really. Sunday morning was extremely rough.. but luckily nothing was expected of us at all as we boarded the bus back to van. A good few days recovery and I was back to normal. An all round fantastic weekend!
Sidenote: I somehow cracked a rib falling on a failed 360 landing on my chunky-oldschool-mp3Player which was in my breast pocket at the time.. It's somewhat plaguing me, and will for another 3-4 weeks.. not terrible tho, been boarding twice since..
Making It Happen
If I may turn a little more reflective, one thing I've been focusing a lot on here is not trying too hard to make things happen, but simply allowing them too. Going with gut feeling about everything really does pay off. The house i'm in, the people I meet. It's all just felt as though it was written... A friend of mine Lucy, who is a beautiful, wise, down to earth soul, lent me a book called The 7 Spiritual Laws of Success by Deepak Chopra. This book draws on Vedantic roots and presents knowledge about manifesting what you want from life. There are many many less graceful presentations of similar knowledge.. one many people know as The Secret... which is given from a very very superficial angle that is laughable and really almost purposely misses the point in order be more appealing and hence reach to a wider audience. However ridiculous information like this may be presented doesn't take from the essence of truth behind them. This book is in particular is very humble in its approach. It explains the link between detachment and manifestation, how giving and receiving are exactly the same thing, and most importantly how to become open to receiving. I highly recommend checking it out.
NonEmployment
Unfortunately, I havent quite got manifestation of a job down yet... There are a number of things in the pipeline, all potentials... but nothing solid. I feel this is because I really dont have a clear idea of what i actually want to do here.. I want to utilise my programming skills but the thought of getting another 9-5 desk job is really really really unappealing... (The gut feeling is clear on this one).. So in the mean time, I've signed up for a temp agency that has some work for me but not regular and not immediately. I've also signed up to do extra work on films which is a huge industry in Vancouver and should be picking up over the next month as it starts to warm up. That should be interesting :) But i'm really trying to focus and work out what i want to do so I can start moving towards it.
Other Than That
-Life has been very very busy..
-I've aquired a lot of friends, many of who are separate to many others so there is a lot of things to do all the time.
-Last night I went out to a bar called Whine-O's who do $6.50 pitchers (~1.5 aussie jugs), this will probably be a regular Tuesday affair.
-I'm currently learning a new programming language (PHP) to help me find work.
-I've been walking the 5 min journey to my local beach daily for minimum 30 mins of meditation with a mountain backdrop.
-I've been to the Hare Krsna temple a few times here but it's quite a mission.. the round trip including eating is about 3 hours and they dont serve dinner until 8pm for some reason.. I'm going this Sunday for sure.
-More panoramas from around Vancouver here!!
-I will attempt to update this a little more frequently if stuff is happening.. ;)
Bye for now! *hugs to all*
D
Whistler Take One
After getting back from Nelson, Alana, Kathy and I had a couple of days off before jumping on a bus to Whistler in the afternoon on St. Pats Day (unplanned). Staying there the night at the university hostel to get up and ride the next day. We got there a day after 45cm of snowfall in 48 hours. So i was pretty damn exctited, but I just cannot say I was particularly impressed.. not with the snow anyway.. the mountain was completely tracked out and there was no fresh snow to be found anywhere.. Dont get me wrong it is a SERIOUSLY impressive mountain.. well actually 2 mountains. there's Whistler and Blackcomb, and they actually have a gondola called Peak2Peak which connects them together. THAT was impressive! The place is just enormous. At the end of the day I did a run from the top to Whistler Creek which is sort've off to the side and it took me about 20 minutes. the run just never ended, well at 4pm it certainly felt like it... a few beers at the mountain bar and we were back on the bus to Vancouver
Bye Lani!
Alana and Kathy departed on the 23rd March. I'm sure a bunch of stuff happened between heading to whistler and Alana leaving but nothing i can recall from this far back!! I got slack... So Alana leaving was kinda bittersweet.. I am extremely gratefull for the soft landing that she provided for me in Vancouver. Not only did she help me establish myself and provide support and enouragement for everything i needed to get done establishing a life, she also introduced me to a large amount of awesome people :) I was sorry to see her go, but at the same time there was so much positivity around it it was hard to be too upset. She's heading off for a once in a lifetime experience cruising around Europe, and her departure was the commencement of my independance here in Vancouver. Almost win-win! ;)
After seeing Alana off at the airport, I bumped into a random Aussie called Russell from townsville way. But I'll detail that story a little later in the piece..
Settling In At Home
When we were in Nelson we went to WalMart and bought some hanging drawers for my closet and a dual lamp, but at this stage I was sleeping on an airbed which continuously went flat, relegating me to the couch. Searching the local classifieds I found someone moving to Montreal and selling up all their stuff. I managed to get two sets of vertical shelves, a bed and matress all for $100! Whoop! However, upon attempting to construct said bed, I discovered that there were only 2 out of 8 nuts to screw the screws into.. turns out the girl had just placed the screws in the holes and hoped for the best.. clearly this bed didnt get much action or it would have most certainly fallen to pieces.. So i trekked to the local "Bunnings" style hardware store known as Canadian Tire and after struggling to determine whether metric or imperial was more appropriate (side note: Canada is extremely conflicted over which system to use. As far as I can tell they want to use metric but are held back by imports coming from US.. Speed is in kph, Height and length is in feet and inches, temperature is in celcius, weight is in pounds.. annoying), I finally got the bed sturdy and for the first time in 5 weeks started to feel like I had a home to live in.. This made things much more comfortable, here is my room as it stands now. The big empty wall is just dying to be filled with something arty. I have a few ideas but cant afford them just yet so I'll hold off.
I've also been getting along great with my roommates Camilo and Amin and their extended crew of friends. Mostly Mexican i'm virtually immersed in a spanish speaking environment... :) Both guys are heavily into paintball and have their own gear (plus spares!) and play in unofficial playing fields, virtually only paying for paint they buy online @ $40 for 2000 rounds!! One field they currently frequent is an abandoned womens penitentiary which sounds like sooooo much fun. I've held off joining them as I want to get some income going before I get addicted :)
Russell + Whistler Again + Insanity
Alighting the shuttle bus from the airport terminal to the bus station after seeing Alana off, I hear an Aussie voice questioning how to get to a specific hostel. I tell him I'm heading his way and to follow me. Then I jumped on the bus going in the wrong direction.. hahah nevertheless I met Russell. Aussie guy from up Townsville way who had rough plans to stop in Vancouver for a few days before moving east and ultimately down to South America for one hell of a journey. Two nights later we head to the bar below his downtown hostel for some drinks and there is a Kokanee Beer Promotion going on with a bunch of Glacier Girls running the show. All of us there enter the comp which involved sophisticated challenges such as putting on underwear and a wig in the fastest time possible. Cut to the chase: Russ wins. We're thinkin' yay some free beer or something.. no.. instead? An all expenses paid trip to Whistler for the Kokanee Whiteout Party a week later.
Russ crashed on the couch until the weekend and we were away. It is pretty hard to describe just what the weekend was like.. but 'surreal' is a handy adjective.. We were put up in a swishy hotel with free breakfast and dinners. First night we got there they announced a Toga themed pub-crawl through Whistler Village, they werent allowed to give us free alcohol so instead they gave us cash to spend on kokanee beer, which we promptly took to the local bottle shop and spent on spirits. Saturday we had a chance to go snowboarding for the morning, which was quite a struggle given the night before, but we managed.
The main even for the weekend was the Whiteout Party, which was located up the gondola to the top of the mountain - very exciting. The party was pretty wild with kokanee prmo girls all over the place and all these other girls (i'm guessing crowd filler) known as Fun Police, a foam pit, a breakdancing show, great beats and just all round enthusiasm from everyone to enjoy the night.. Hard to go wrong really. Sunday morning was extremely rough.. but luckily nothing was expected of us at all as we boarded the bus back to van. A good few days recovery and I was back to normal. An all round fantastic weekend!
Sidenote: I somehow cracked a rib falling on a failed 360 landing on my chunky-oldschool-mp3Player which was in my breast pocket at the time.. It's somewhat plaguing me, and will for another 3-4 weeks.. not terrible tho, been boarding twice since..
Making It Happen
If I may turn a little more reflective, one thing I've been focusing a lot on here is not trying too hard to make things happen, but simply allowing them too. Going with gut feeling about everything really does pay off. The house i'm in, the people I meet. It's all just felt as though it was written... A friend of mine Lucy, who is a beautiful, wise, down to earth soul, lent me a book called The 7 Spiritual Laws of Success by Deepak Chopra. This book draws on Vedantic roots and presents knowledge about manifesting what you want from life. There are many many less graceful presentations of similar knowledge.. one many people know as The Secret... which is given from a very very superficial angle that is laughable and really almost purposely misses the point in order be more appealing and hence reach to a wider audience. However ridiculous information like this may be presented doesn't take from the essence of truth behind them. This book is in particular is very humble in its approach. It explains the link between detachment and manifestation, how giving and receiving are exactly the same thing, and most importantly how to become open to receiving. I highly recommend checking it out.
NonEmployment
Unfortunately, I havent quite got manifestation of a job down yet... There are a number of things in the pipeline, all potentials... but nothing solid. I feel this is because I really dont have a clear idea of what i actually want to do here.. I want to utilise my programming skills but the thought of getting another 9-5 desk job is really really really unappealing... (The gut feeling is clear on this one).. So in the mean time, I've signed up for a temp agency that has some work for me but not regular and not immediately. I've also signed up to do extra work on films which is a huge industry in Vancouver and should be picking up over the next month as it starts to warm up. That should be interesting :) But i'm really trying to focus and work out what i want to do so I can start moving towards it.
Other Than That
-Life has been very very busy..
-I've aquired a lot of friends, many of who are separate to many others so there is a lot of things to do all the time.
-Last night I went out to a bar called Whine-O's who do $6.50 pitchers (~1.5 aussie jugs), this will probably be a regular Tuesday affair.
-I'm currently learning a new programming language (PHP) to help me find work.
-I've been walking the 5 min journey to my local beach daily for minimum 30 mins of meditation with a mountain backdrop.
-I've been to the Hare Krsna temple a few times here but it's quite a mission.. the round trip including eating is about 3 hours and they dont serve dinner until 8pm for some reason.. I'm going this Sunday for sure.
-More panoramas from around Vancouver here!!
-I will attempt to update this a little more frequently if stuff is happening.. ;)
Bye for now! *hugs to all*
D
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